In this week’s episode I’ll be discussing Swords in the Mist, Book 3 of the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser sword and sorcery tales by Fritz Leiber. The collection includes five short stories and one novella. In my mind the stand out tale is the short story, “Lean Times in Lankhmar.”

In this week’s episode of Pulp Crazy, I discuss Swords against Death by Fritz Leiber. This is Book 2 of the Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Series. The collection is comprised of 10 pieces of short fiction. It’s notable for the first appearances (from an internal chronological standpoint) of Sheelba of the Eyeless Face and Ningauble of the Seven Eyes, the patron warlocks of The Gray Mouser and Fafhrd respectively. Swords against Death also includes the cleverly titled, “Bazaar of the Bizarre.”

In this week’s episode I’ll be discussing Swords and Deviltry (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Book 1) by Fritz Leiber. It’s a fantastic collection of three high quality, award nominated sword and sorcery novellas. The most prominent being Ill Met in Lankhmar, which won the 1971 Hugo and 1971 Nebula awards for Best Novella. It’s a sword and sorcery classic.

In this week’s episode I will be discussing the original version of Adept’s Gambit by Fritz Leiber. Adept’s Gambit is a sword & sorcery tale starring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. The original manuscript which contains references to the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft has been unearthed and published by Arcane Wisdom Press, edited by S.T. Joshi. This new limited edition hardcover contains bonus features including annotations from S.T. Joshi, an introduction from Joshi and Lovecraft’s commentary on the original version of Adept’s Gambit.

In this weeks episode I will be discussing A Night in Malnéant by Clark Ashton Smith. It’s a short story that was first published in June 1933, in a collection titled “The Double Shadow and Other Fantasties”, which Smith published himself. The story would later be reprinted in the September 1939 issue of Weird Tales. This is not part of any particular cycle within Smith’s body of work, it is a stand alone Weird Fantasy story. It deals with a nameless narrator who wanders into the gothic city of Malneant and spends an unusual mist shrouded night there as his past appears to catch up with him.

It’s a pretty interesting story and is wonderfully told. Thanks to the generosity of Will Hart, aka CtulhuWho1, I have included a recording of noted fantasy writer Fritz Leiber reading the story from the 3rd World Fantasy Convention on October 29, 1977 in Los Angeles, California, where Clark Ashton Smith was the theme. Will was in attendance for the reading and thanks to him it will last forever. Be sure to check out Will’s site and Flickr page for a ton of great audio and visual goodness when it comes to classic dark fantasy tales. His site is located at cthulhuwho1.com. I’ll put links to both his site and flickr page in the show notes.